


A Matter of Patience

by cobalamincosel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Johnny feat. The Song Dumb Ways to Die, M/M, doctor kun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 06:03:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17913185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobalamincosel/pseuds/cobalamincosel
Summary: Kun doesn’t mind being a general practitioner. It means he’s the first line of defence for everyone who needs assistance immediately, and rarely do people need a specialist on the regular.Winwin had given him shit when Kun had said he was taking a year off to try being a GP before deciding on a residency track.That had been three years ago.Kun is happy. People come through with coughs and colds and a sprain here or there, all simple— until Johnny.





	A Matter of Patience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mintkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintkey/gifts), [lunalius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunalius/gifts).



> Just a tiny twit fic that I don’t wanna lose so I transferred it here. 
> 
> For @moonttael and @singledadjohnny.

Kun doesn’t mind being a general practitioner. It means he’s the first line of defence for everyone who needs assistance immediately, and rarely do people need a specialist on the regular.

Winwin had given him shit when Kun had said he was taking a year off to try being a GP before deciding on a residency track. 

That had been three years ago. 

Kun is happy. People come through with coughs and colds and a sprain here or there, all simple— until Johnny.

Johnny had walked into his clinic for the first time in October, though “walking” was relative, since it had looked more like a hobble than anything else. 

Kun had seen him coming in from a mile away, literally, since he was probably about 6 foot 3, and absolutely gorgeous.

“Good morning, I’m Doctor Qian Kun,” Kun had said, reaching his hand out. “I’ll be your physician for today. Can you tell me what happened, sir—?”

“Oh, uh, Seo? Johnny. Call me Johnny,” the tall, beautiful man had replied. Firm handshake. Eye contact. Cooperative patient. Nice.

“Okay so, uh, I was jogging by the lake and I was listening to music, but then I got too into the moment for a second there, and closed my eyes cos I was really feeling the song, and I didn’t see the pothole, and uh, twisted my ankle,” Johnny had said in one breath.

Kun sighed.

“Okay sir, you’re gonna have to walk me through what time this happened, and if there’s anything you’ve taken for the pain, or anything you’ve done since the accident.” 

“I kinda just stuffed my foot back into the shoe and hopped here, doc,” Johnny laughed. “No meds, nothing.”

Kun had ordered an x-ray for Johnny’s left foot, had determined that despite the massive swelling, he had miraculously gotten away with no fractures, and sent him home with a bottle of ibuprofen. 

That had been the first time.

The second time Johnny had stepped into his clinic was on November second, when the winds had picked up and Kun had had to start taking out his winter wear from the storage cases under his bed.

The day had been particularly chilly, so Kun hadn’t expected many patients to brave the cold, until the bell chimed two hours after lunch, and in walked Johnny Seo, shirtless, his left hand in his right, with a bunched up t-shirt that was steadily being soaked with blood.

Kun rushed to the bleeding giant, who took one look at him and went, “Doctor Kun! Fancy meeting you here,” to which Kun had replied, “sir, this is literally my clinic.”

Kun had ushered Johnny to the minor operating room in the back, and Jungwoo had come in to assist, setting up the suture set and preparing the draping.

“You’re a size seven, right sir?” Jungwoo asked, looking through the gloves arranged on the counter.

“Yeah,” Kun had said absentmindedly, pouring saline solution all over Johnny’s bleeding hand, not catching the little smirk that his patient had on, until Johnny had said, “So, seven, eh?”

Kun had looked up at him, fighting the furious blush that he was sure was painting his cheeks, because even if he thought Johnny was cute, he was still his patient and those were not lines that Kun was going to cross. What was this, a bad gay porno?

Kun had cleared his throat, ignored Johnny’s comment, and switched to his doctor voice. 

“Good morning, Mr. Seo, care to tell me what happened here?” Kun asked, chiding but not unkind.

“Okay, so, I was trying to fix my bike after the chain jammed earlier, but uhhh, I didn’t have any tools with me so I tried to bare-hand it, but I didn’t realise how sharp these parts could be, and I pulled on— something, not sure what, I don’t actually know how to fix bikes—but anyway, yeah, next thing I know, I’m bleeding. Didn’t know what to do, so I went for first piece of cloth I could find, and made my way here,” Johnny said, smiling like his story wasn’t as stupid as the reason behind his sprained ankle the month before.

Kun pinched the bridge of his nose momentarily before readjusting his glasses. What anyone would be doing out biking in this weather, wearing nothing but joggers and a thin t-shirt, was beyond him.

The laceration was a clean one, only jagged at the end of the 6 centimetre gash over the thenar compartment. 

“You’re lucky this is just skin, Mr. Seo—“

"God, please call me Johnny, doc. Mr. Seo is my dad, not me,” Johnny said, staring at the still-bleeding gash.

“Okay, Johnny, like I said, this is just skin, so I’m gonna be instilling lidocaine into the wound edges right here,” Kun said, pointing at the location, just so Johnny would understand, and so he’d be able to fully form his consent.

“I’m gonna be suturing this here, here, here, and here. I might have to add one more over here, but we’ll see if the bleeding stops before we do, okay?”

Johnny nodded, sitting up. 

“This is going to hurt,” Kun said from the sink where he was washing his hands. “But just for the anaesthesia bit. You shouldn’t feel anything after that.” 

The room was quiet for the most part after Jungwoo had left, when the lidocaine was loaded into the syringe, Johnny’s had had been cleaned with peroxide, and Kun had pulled on his sterile gloves. 

“So how long have you been in the business, doc?” Johnny asked, just as Kun was about to load him with lidocaine. 

“About three years since I put this clinic up, if that’s what you’re asking,” Kun said. “Hold on, this is the part that stings.”

Johnny had grit his teeth, his exhale coming out through them, and had nearly pulled his entire hand away until Kun had tightened his grip on Johnny’s wrist. 

It took five neat little sutures to get the bleeding to stop, and Kun had sent Johnny home with a prescription for ibuprofen only if he needed them, and strict orders to refrain from doing anything stupid. 

Kun had carried the sound of Johnny’s laughter all the way home. 

When Johnny had come back a week and a half later to have his sutures taken out, he had come with a box of brownies with little nuts on them, as a thank you. Kun hadn’t had the heart to tell him that he was allergic to them, and he told himself later when he got home, staring at the box, that it didn’t mean anything more than a patient being kind during the holidays, and also that since Johnny was his patient, he was Definitely Not Allowed To Be Thinking About His Cute Smile. 

-

Christmas meant snow, and snow meant children playing outdoors, making snow angels, stuffing each other’s jackets with the icy stuff. So of course, Christmas meant that Kun was swamped with children being brought to the clinic with fevers hitting well past beyond 40C. 

The clinic was full of screaming kids and irritated parents who were demanding that he worked faster. He had called in Jaehyun for the week, hoping that having the paediatrician around would make his load just a bit lighter. 

It worked, since he was down to about 3 more patients before the clinic is set to close at 5, and Kun breathed a sigh of relief after discharging his seventh case of an upper respiratory tract infection before in came Johnny Seo, being wheeled into Kun’s clinic at 4:35pm.

There was a knife in his foot. 

What the fuck.

“Mr. Seo,” Kun said in the calmest voice possible. “What the f— I mean, what are you doing here with a knife in your foot?” 

Johnny looked up at the doctor sheepishly, and Kun had to resist the urge to punch his patient in the face for looking up at him like a wounded puppy. 

“Okay, so,” Johnny began. Kun was really starting to hate those two words, and he was wondering if it was possible for him to refer Johnny to a specialist because clearly he was a menace to himself and had no logical sense of self-preservation. 

“I was making gumbo earlier cos I’m hosting a little dinner at home, and I was about to start chopping up the edamame when my phone rang and a I had to reach out and get it, but the knife fell, and my instinct kicked in so I tried to catch it.”

“With your bare foot?” Kun deadpanned.

Johnny just shrugged. 

“It was a good idea at the time?” Johnny grinned, actually grinned, his teeth looking like the emoji Yangyang liked to send him when Yangyang would text him about something dumb he too had done. 

Kun was pretty sure he was developing hypertension at the young, young age of 27 at this point. 

“Mr. Seo—“

“Johnny.”

A deep breath. 

“Johnny, this is not an emergency room, for goodness sake. I don’t have the means to suture this here, this is— this is a blade through muscle,” Kun said, mildly in despair.

Johnny’s face fell, and Kun, holding on only to his Hippocratic oath and firmly not thinking about the stupid crush he had on this stupid man, decided to say, “Okay, I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

“No, no, it’s really okay, I can get a car—“

“Jungwoo, Jae, do you guys mind closing up for me?” Kun called out, already pulling off his white coat to trade it out for the down-feather one by the door. 

Jungwoo, bless him, simply smiled and nodded, and Jaehyun, who had been auscultating a little girl’s back, waved him off with a “no problem, hyung!” 

The ride to the hospital took longer than it should have because it had decided to snow that morning and the roads were too slippery to rush anything. So there Kun was, in his sensible Kia Piccanto, with the most handsome man he had ever laid his eyes on, who also had a knife sticking out of his bare left foot. 

“We have to stop meeting like this, Johnny,” Kun said, his eyes on the road. He meant for it to come out exasperated in like, an ‘I’m a physician please listen to my advice’ kind of way, but it comes out different. Sad, almost. Kun wanted to brain himself on the steering wheel.

Johnny hadn’t waited a second to volley back, “So do you think you’d maybe meet me outside of your clinic then?” His smile was blinding. Kun nearly drove off the highway, his spit caught in his throat after the momentary gasp he let out.

“Mr. Seo!” Kun exclaimed. “You are my patient!”

“If I’m not mistaken, I’m not your patient anymore since you’re taking me to the hospital to be someone else’s patient,” Johnny replied, smooth as butter, stupid shit-eating grin in place, as if his foot wasn’t housing cutlery.

“I—“

Kun’s phone rang, and on speakerphone, Winwin was talking to him in rapid-fire Mandarin. Kun had never loved Dong Sicheng more than in that moment for opting to do so because his best friend was berating him for bringing his crush to Winwin’s very busy hospital.

“Kun, you’ve met this guy TWO TIMES, three if you count today, and he’s obviously a dumbass, please tell me why you like him,” Sicheng’s distressed voice boomed over the sound of an ambulance in the background. 

Kun had no viable response apart from “Winwinnie, he’s cute, okay?”

Sicheng cursed him out with a string of very colourful words before saying, “I’m already at the ER waiting for your stupid butt & your boyfriend’s stupid foot. Bye. Love you.”

Kun laughed, relieved that they were about five minutes away from Soo-Man Memorial. 

“So, cute, huh?”

Kun’s blood froze in his veins. His heart stopped. He was sure of it. Johnny had really gone and said fuck sinoatrial node’s lives. 

“H-how do you know what I said?” Kun said, voice very controlled and very quiet. 

“I took up Mandarin for four years in college,” Johnny replied.

Kun stayed silent, completely mortified because that meant that he had heard everything Sicheng had said, and so that meant that the jig was up. 

Sicheng was outside the emergency room, waving them over with a wheelchair and a nurse next to him. Kun had never been more relieved.

“Okay, loverboy, let’s get this thing out of you,” Sicheng said, helping Johnny out of the car. 

There was a pool of blood on the mat in Kun’s passenger seat, and Johnny’s stupid grin had not left his face for a second. “Yup, that’s me, I’m loverboy,” Johnny said cheerfully.

Kun sat in the waiting room after Johnny was wheeled away, because Johnny actually had to be admitted for this. (“This will require a regional block on your foot, Mr. Seo, this isn’t something local anaesthesia can handle,” Sicheng had explained, like Johnny was a child.)

When Sicheng came out of the operating room to fill him in, Kun was relieved to know that the knife had been disposed of and that Johnny was just a little groggy from the sedation. 

“You really know how to pick em, Kun,” Sicheng laughed. “He was really chatty too. Kept talking.”

“About what?” Kun was almost afraid to ask. 

“Mostly asking about you,” Sicheng said, side-eyeing his best friend. “He wanted to know if it was unethical to ask you out on a date.” 

Kun sputtered, unable to come up with a reply. Oh my god, he thought. This is a bad gay porno.

Kun had had to make the call to Johnny’s mother about the accident, and she had rushed over immediately. Kun had no idea what she looked like, but when a woman walked up to the nurse’s station who looked exactly like Johnny, he knew. 

“Eomma Seo!” Kun called out.

The woman with salt and pepper hair in a neat bun turned to face him, and she walked over to him quickly.

“Oh my goodness, I didn’t know my son was dating someone so handsome,” she said, pulling him in for a hug. 

Kun’s entire face was tomato-red when he pulled away.

“Oh, I, uh, I’m not- I’m-“ Kun was stuttering, something he only ever did in front of his consultants when he was still an intern and knew nothing. 

“Thank you so much for calling me over and taking such good care of him. When can we see him?” Eomma Seo was so sincere.

Kun didn’t have the heart to correct her. 

“They’ll be wheeling him out of the operating room complex in a bit, you’ll just have to handle the admission to his room, but I managed to hold one on this floor already for him,” Kun said. Thank God for Sicheng, really.

Johnny was brought out and transferred into room 127 shortly thereafter. Visiting hours had been over an hour ago, but since Sicheng was the head of the department of Surgery and Yuta was the hospital administrator, & anything Sicheng wanted, Yuta provided. So, Kun stayed.

He knocked on the door softly, just as Eomma Seo was heading out. 

“Kun, I’ll be off now to pick up some clothes from Johnny’s apartment and clean up his gumbo mess,” she said, pulling her winter jacket on. “I’ll see you later, sweetheart.” She pecked him on the cheek.

“So, I think my mom thinks that we’re dating,” Johnny said from his bed, the white light over his head making him look gaunt. Kun flipped the switch to the room’s light, causing Johnny to flinch from the sudden brightness. 

“Yeah, wonder what gave her that impression?” Kun said.

Kun pulled the seat next to Johnny’s bed closer, not expecting Johnny to hold his hand out. 

“I’m Johnny Seo. I like long walks on the beach, biking in winter, and cute bottle-blonde doctors who look at me like I’m a small thing to love,” Johnny said, smiling.

Kun had to laugh, the nervousness dissipating in the face of this overgrown golden retriever posing as a six foot three man with dark hair and undercut. 

“I’m Dr. Qian Kun. I like running my clinic, magic tricks, and giants who seem to have the worst luck with their limbs.”


End file.
